Stephen,
To start: I give you my sincere condolences about the cowardly terrorist attacks in London.
The Republic of Ireland has been more metric for years than Britain. In Ireland I always use the units that a person uses who speaks to me. As Fahrenheit has virtually gone in Ireland, I use Celsius there. When I went to Ireland for the first time in 1971 (!) the pilot announced that it was 17 degrees Celsius in Dublin. Two years ago the plane arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport from Dublin on a remote runway, 7 km from the terminal. The pilot said that the final ride would be rather long; he said that we had landed 7 km from the terminal.
As Ireland has changed to kilometres on January 20 last. So there is no need at all to use miles in a news item about the Tour de France by an Irish newspaper. I spoke to one person who said she was still using miles, but she will adjust. She was not opposed to metric, she had only to make the last step. The Irish people will adjust to the kilometre as they adjusted to the Euro. I do hear people here using kilometres.
Only head room signs remain dual; I think that is to avoid litigation by drivers who ram their 6'7'' vehicle under a 2 m high bridge, get stuck, and then claim they do not understand what ' head room 2 m' means.
Han
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Message date : 06-07-2005 09:58
From : "Stephen Humphreys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To : "U.S. Metric Association"
Copy to :
Subject : [USMA:33453] RE: July 4
>
>What units do you use in Ireland, since Ireland is pretty much metric now?
>Did you see the new signs? Did you talk to anybody about them and their
>impressions?
>
The tour de France is in - erm - "France" (not Ireland)
Yes, and France is metric.
